Tuesday, April 07, 2009

I was going through an old correspondence folder today, and came up with some letters postmarked 1969, from what was then called the "Tibetan University," and is today the Central Institute for Higher Tibetan Studies. Enclosed were some photographs, and I scanned one that I found particularly poignant. I was sponsoring a young lama who was living there at the time, and he sent this picture to show me how desolate it was.

You know, people who have only recently come to interest in Tibetan affairs have difficulty understanding how it was for the first decade following the 1959 exodus. You see above some rudimentary structures in the middle of a derelict field.

This is how it looks there today. They even have a really magnificent library. It is 40 years ago, but really, it seems like yesterday.

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